Witch's Honor
by Audra Lachesis
Summary: When Malfoy hexes Hermione, Harry and Ron are stumped for a countercurse -- until they get some help from an unlikely source. Pointless, plotless, and written several years ago -- but R/R anyway, please!


Witch's Honor 

By Audra Lachesis

spazzula@yahoo.com

The corridors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were empty, except for the occasional ghost.  Most students were at class for the afternoon, down in the dungeons or up in the classroom towers. A very few students happened to have a free period during this time, and that is what started all the trouble.

Hermione stood in the middle of the Great Hall, rigid and transfixed. Harry shook her worriedly, trying to wake her, while an infuriated Ron stormed over to face a pale, smug-looking blond boy.

"You turn her back, Draco Malfoy!" Ron snarled.

Malfoy smirked. "What's the matter, Weasley? Don't know the antidote? I'm sure your little Mudblood girlfriend could whip up a batch of the reversal potion – but she's a little frozen right now, isn't she?"

With a nasty laugh, Malfoy turned and swept out of the Great Hall.  Ron stomped back over to Harry and Hermione.

"What did he throw at her, anyway?" Ron asked darkly.

Harry shook his head. "I think it was some sort of curse… it looks a lot like the Full Body-Bind, but the countercharm doesn't work." He swept a lock of ebony hair out of his eyes and sighed, frustrated. "Malfoy was aiming for me, you know – Hermione just got in his way. It's almost like her muscles are frozen."

"Oh, cripes," Ron groaned. "Not a Muscle-Freeze curse!  That's worse than the Body-Bind, I've heard, and there IS no countercharm.  I think Malfoy was actually telling the truth, though – there SHOULD be an antidote."

"Let me guess," Harry said sardonically. "You don't know it."

Ron squirmed. "Well, er… no.  Hermione would. Or at least, she'd know where to find it." He looked at Harry glumly.  "Malfoy can be a real pill sometimes."

"Sometimes?" Harry snorted.  "Try constantly.  He enjoys tormenting us. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he followed in his father's footsteps and joined up with Vold—er, You-Know-Who.  Just to spite me."  Harry sat down heavily in a nearby chair.  "So how exactly are we supposed to unfreeze Hermione? I'm _not_ asking Snape for help with an antidote, you know."

The hinges of the great double doors creaked, and Harry and Ron looked up, wands ready.  To their surprise, Malfoy was not returning to gloat – instead, they spotted a head a familiar red hair.  Ginny stared back at them apprehensively.

"I didn't mean to eavesdrop," she said hesitantly, "but you WERE making a lot of noise, and I thought I had overheard you say that Hermione has run afoul of a Muscle-Freeze curse…"

Ron seized his sister by the arm and propelled her into the room.  "You know the antidote?" he asked breathlessly.

"Well, no," Ginny admitted. "But there's a book in the library called 'One Thousand and One Curses and How To Counter Them.'  I found it while doing some research for Defense Against the Dark Arts – Hermione showed it to me. Would that help?"

Harry and Ron stared at Ginny for a moment, then at each other. They burst out laughing.

"We should have known," Ron chuckled. "Hermione would be ashamed of us, not thinking of the library."

***

Harry returned with the book and leafed through it quickly.  "Curse of the Bogies… Full Body-Bind… Leg-Locker… Here it is!  Muscle Freeze curse!"  Harry spread the book out in front of him, while Ron and Ginny looked over his shoulder.  "It says here that the Muscle Freeze curse only effects the muscles, unlike the Full Body-Bind, and that – uh-oh.  Isn't the heart a muscle?" He glanced through the book again, and gave a sigh of relief. "It hasn't stopped her heart yet, at least.  But we have to get her the antidote within twelve hours, or it will."

"So what's the antidote?" Ron asked impatiently.

"I'm getting to it." Harry skimmed the pages.  "Here we are.  Two parts lizard skin, one part bat oil, three butterfly wings, and a single drop of – paint?"

"Paint?" Ron echoed.  "We've got the rest of that in our potions stores, but where are we supposed to get paint? That's a Muggle thing, isn't it?"

Ginny ducked her head to hide a smile, and the two boys looked at her. "I've been working on our Muggle Studies term project back in the common room," she told them. "I've got some scarlet oil paint there – will that do?"

Harry grinned. "Ginny, that would be absolutely perfect."

Ginny blushed and scampered out of the room, and the two boys set to work preparing the anti-Freeze potion.

***

A bucket of Gryffindor red paint sat forgotten on the floor of the Great Hall.  Harry, Ron, and Ginny clustered around Hermione, eyeing the sickly magenta mixture they had concocted.

"She's not supposed to SWALLOW it, is she?" Ginny whispered worriedly. "I mean, there IS oil paint in there."

Harry dribbled a bit of the potion from a paintbrush Ginny had provided. "No, she doesn't drink it," he replied, consulting the book once more.  "We're supposed to put a dab of the potion on her nose; it'll be absorbed by her skin, as well as inhaled." He looked at Ron and shrugged. "Well, that's what the book says.  The esophagus is a muscle, anyway, she wouldn't be able to swallow it.  So we just paint her face with it."

Ron grinned wickedly. "Oooh, can I do it?"

Harry laughed.  "If you want to be responsible for giving Hermione a bright red nose, be my guest. She'll be coming after YOU when she wakes up."

He handed Ron the bowl, and Ron carefully painted a perfectly round red dot on the end of Hermione's nose.  After a long moment, Hermione shuddered and went limp.  Harry and Ginny managed to catch her just before she hit the floor.  She blinked rapidly, eyes crossed as she focused on the tip of her scarlet nose.

"Thanks, Ron," Hermione said sweetly.  Ron, who had apparently been expecting her to yell at him, backed away warily.

And who should decide to show up at that very moment to taunt his victims? 

Draco Malfoy stormed back into the Great Hall – and he looked outraged to find that Hermione had been freed from the Muscle-Freeze curse.

Malfoy glared at Ginny. "You… I didn't think _you'd_ be another little know-it-all busybody, just like Granger. I'll teach you to mind your own business, Weasley.  Frigido—"

"Expelliarmus!" Malfoy's wand flew from his fingers. Hermione held it up triumphantly.

"You were saying?" Hermione prompted.

Malfoy howled furiously.  Hermione tsked.  "Now, now, you can have your wand back when you decide to behave like a good little Slytherin.  I'm giving it to Professor Dumbledore, so you can't cause any more immediate mischief."

Malfoy stomped past them, heading for the main doors. He whirled as he passed, glaring at them.  "This isn't over, Potter! Granger and Weasley can't shield you forever!" He glowered at Ginny. "And don't think I'll forget about YOU just because you're short!"

In a fit of childish malice, Malfoy kicked the abandoned paint can hard, then fled.  Hermione and Ron cried out – the bucket of red paint catapulted straight at Ginny's unprotected head.

Ginny ducked.

***

Ginny wiped bright paint smears from her cheeks as she handed Draco Malfoy's wand to Professor McGonagal.

"And that, Professor, is why the Great Hall is covered in red paint. Witch's honor, it's true."

**END**

Author's Note: This was my very HP first fanfic, written around late 2000. As such, it's plotless and rather pointless, but was just intended to keep me entertained during a particularly boring class.  For the sake of creative license and just because I can, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Malfoy are all Fourth Years when this story takes place – sometime during the Triwizard Tournament, I imagine, ^_^


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